FORMBY’S flying daredevils first took to the sky almost 100 years ago.

Friday, May 14, 2010, will mark the anniversary of the day that Cecil Patterson cranked up the engine on his Farman bi-plane and took off from Freshfield beach.

Soaring over Formby for three hours he became the first to take off from the strip, and claimed his place in the history books.

In those early days of Britain’s aviation history, the beach was the busiest airstrip in the country.

This year the Formby Civic Society are working with the National Trust, Ince Blundell Flying Club and RAF Woodvale to recreate the atmosphere of the first flight.

Led by Formby historian Dr Reg Yorke the team hope to organise a fly past overhead, Freshfield beach sandcastle building competitions for school children and are working on a pamphlet about the history of the centenary.

That guide will draw on the work of aviation historian Chris Aspin, an expert on the early days of flying in Formby, who is the author of Dizzy Heights – the story of Lancashire’s Flying Men.

In that book he tells the story of May 14, writing: “[Cecil Patterson’s] Liverpool Motor House Company spent more than eight months building the machine, which was tested at Freshfield, near Formby, on Saturday, 14th May, 1910.

“Its’ journey there ‘in the breaking dawn of a grey morning was an adventure not without a touch of romance,’ said the Liverpool Daily Post.

“A weird spectacle was presented on the rural highways by a strange procession of uncanny-looking objects.

“The dismantled ‘wings’ of the aeroplane were mounted on a motor­ trolley and the central ‘planes’ and engine towered high up into the air from another motor carriage.

“A motor car containing three or four personal friends of the aviator and a Daily Post representative brought up the rear.”

Before long Formby had become the UK’s aviation hub, with five of the 15 registered pilots taking off from the beach at Freshfield.

Gerald Higginbotham, a wealthy daredevil engineer and motorist from Macclesfield soon joined Cecil Patterson, flying a Bleriot which he’d snapped up at a knock-down price in a car salesroom in Manchester.

Mr Aspin wrote: “Since Freshfield had the open spaces that Macclesfield lacked, Higginbotham built a hangar on the shore; and having hitched the dismantled monoplane to his car, he set off before daybreak on a fine summer morning in 1910.

“By 6.30, I had arrived on the sands, reassembled the plane with the help of my four assistants and flown a straight mile.

“His only instructions were on two sheets of foolscap paper sent to him by Bleriot.

“At first, Higginbotham was able to make only straight flights and had to land in order to turn the plane round; but by practising each weekend, he became a competent pilot and was soon flying over the Mersey, where the surprised captains of Atlantic liners sounded their sirens in greeting.”

Later the two trail-blazers were joined by bi-plane pilots WP Thompson and Patterson’s own pupil, RA King and Henry Melly, who flew a Bleriot.